Cash Boost For Some EFL Clubs – 2017

The EFL Futures scheme has now given a £750,000 boost to those Football League clubs who introduced young English players into their starting line up in the season of 2016/17.

The incentive scheme came into force for the beginning of this year and was designed to commit a total of £2.25million to the three tiers for those clubs who actively gave game time to the next generation of players – aged under 21 and were eligible to play for England or Wales for Cardiff City and Newport County.

With all appearance data now collected and collated, those numbers have been assessed and the EFL have distributed the first batch of that incentive money out to qualifying teams.

Interestingly but probably not surprisingly, clubs in League One and League Two benefited more than Championship clubs with a total pay out of:

League Two = £304,000League One = £294,000Championship = £152,000

In the year of 2016/17 almost 10% of appearances made across the three tiers were made by eligible youngsters with those appearances being made by 322 players from a pool of approximately 2,500 registered players across the three divisions.

80% of all under 21 appearances were made by players who qualified for the EFL Futures fund.

‘When we launched EFL Futures we discussed the need for a collective commitment to support the progression of young players into starting line-ups. EFL clubs already play a big part in player development through the Academy system, but EFL Futures provides an additional incentive to give more playing opportunities to our young local footballers. We will continue to look at further ways to shape the ambition of providing a pathway from Academies into the first team. I`m sure that the payments announced today will have a positive and lasting impact and that EFL Futures will deliver the required change in what is a hugely significant area for the long-term growth of the English game.’